


The Gift of a Clean Slate (it's a Trojan horse)

by StuckySituation



Series: The Gift of a Clean Slate (it's a Trojan horse) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (in a way), Amnesia, Amnesiac Steve Rogers, Angst, Author is sorry for that, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Depressed Bucky Barnes, Fade to Black, Happy ending possible in their future but not shown here, Identity Porn, M/M, No Period Typical Attitudes on show because I don't dig writing about homophobia, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sex is, Steve Rogers Feels, Top Steve Rogers, World War II, implied - Freeform, so many hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 23:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17928596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuckySituation/pseuds/StuckySituation
Summary: The serum and Vita Rays build Steve anew. In the process, he loses his memory.---Steve puts down the photo of the little guy from Brooklyn. “Doesn’t sound like I lost much.”Peggy smiles sadly. “You will never know what all you lost. Nobody can tell you, because it wasyourlife.”“No family, life expectancy of crap nothing, a drop out from art school after only a year…” Steve shrugs and smiles ruefully. “I have time to make new memories. It’s a clean slate, with a healthy body and years ahead of me. A lot of people can only dream about getting a chance like this.”





	The Gift of a Clean Slate (it's a Trojan horse)

**Author's Note:**

> It was time to switch the gears from gross fluff-landia and get back to write about my one true trope love -- identity porn angst :P (Or: I was having a real bad writing day yesterday, words were not cooperating me and nothing was getting done, until this fic idea popped up in my mind in the evening and then I sat down to write 5k of it in one go.)
> 
> This fic ends on a sad note and before the events of "Captain America: the Winter Soldier". Theoretically (and in my mind, yes, certainly), there can be a happy ending (even if not a perfect one) for them, but I have no plans currently to make this a two-shot. So, this is an unapologetic amnesia angst fest. Be warned.
> 
> **EDIT:** Well, as you can see, this fic is now part of the series, and there's a second part, because I was physically incapable of leaving this fic alone. That one still happens before the appearance of Winter Soldier, but... it's a tiny bit of comfort? Maybe? Something that doesn't kind of end on as a sad note?
> 
> TWs:  
> Mild dubious consent warning. Everything that happens is consensual, but Steve doesn't remember Bucky and Bucky doesn't tell him that they have a shared past.
> 
> Also, there's an offhand comment about Bucky making sure that Steve eats enough as Captain America, and about Steve's copious coping method of punching stuff until his knuckles bleed. Neither of these are huge plot points, but I thought better to mention them in advance than catch anyone off guard about them.

 

 

**_Steve_ **

 

As far as Steve is concerned, his life began at the age of 25.

 

He has seen the one existing photo of his former self. He has been told some basic facts; the impressive list of his ailments, his pitiful former life expectancy, the names of his dead parents, the name of the art school he went for a year, that he’s from ‘Brooklyn’.

 

He knows where his parents’ graves are and he still has his artistic skills (of course, he has nothing to compare his current skill level to, but he’s pleased about his skills nonetheless when he gives drawing a go for the first time). Having seen the photo of the sickly little guy, he doesn’t regret having forgotten the pneumonias, pains, and sufferings.

 

He has been told about his past character what little Colonel Phillips and Peggy Carter knew; Steve Rogers was a fighter, a good man, both smart and smartass, a gentleman. It was humbling to listen to them, and hear the respect the both of them had had for the tiny little guy from the Brooklyn who kept his head high through the Basic (even if Colonel laid his respect with a heavy layer of comments about “pain in the ass” and “don’t let this get into your head”).

 

After listening to them, a part of Steve fears that he won’t live up to the shadow of his former self. Sure, he is a supersoldier now, but what if he lost in the process not only his memory, but what had made him… himself?

 

He can’t help but also wonder how much good there was among those 25 years that he now has no clue how to miss. Things that shaped him to be that little fighter. Maybe he had a mentor who gave him wise words for guidance; or life experiences that taught him important lessons; or perhaps there had even been an unlikely secret sweetheart and love that kept him going through the tough years.

 

But it’s fruitless to wallow on the forgotten past. He’s the first and the only super soldier. The little Steve Rogers volunteered for the experiment knowing that there was a possibility of not making it. Maybe he had a life he was ready to throw away, maybe he didn’t; what is certain is that he has a life _now._ He has a purpose, even if it’s only as Captain America, the raiser of the war bonds.

 

It’s something to focus on, at least. And what else would he do?

  


\---

  


It’s been months since he got the serum. Months of figuring out who he is while touring the States, months of growing more and more aware of how… rootless he is. How empty. Traveling from city to city, shaking hands with hundreds of people week after week, being a centerpiece in the world of thousands of shallow smiles… He’s doing important work, but none of it helps him feel _real._

 

He wonders what the little guy from Brooklyn would have thought of all of this. He takes out the photo sometimes in the evenings and looks at that guy, enlisted and looking so damn determined and proud of where he had got himself. Would that Steve Rogers have accepted this role of a showgirl?

 

He arrives to Europe feeling restless. He wants to fight.

  


\---

  


After a disastrous show in front of the soldiers, a man approaches Steve behind the stage.

 

“Captain,” he greets Steve with a grim face. “I’m Monty. I have a proposition for you.”

 

That’s how Steve learns about the Azzano.

 

Sergeant Barnes managed to heroically get most of the men out of the Azzano and is currently recovering, but Monty wants to go back for the rest. “That place is a hell, and I’m not okay with leaving anyone there if there’s anything we can do,” Monty says with a weary face. “We had to get out of there when we could, but god help us, now me and some lads are planning to go back and see if we can get the rest out as well. Are you really what the comics are telling everyone? Will you help us?”

 

Steve tells him that yes, yes he will, and an hour later he is in Stark’s plane, with Peggy, Monty, Dum Dum, and Morita.

  


\---

  


They save the day, and get back. For the first time he can remember, Steve feels like _himself._ He feels like maybe he is Steve Rogers, after all, or at least worthy of carrying his name still, as the soldiers cheer for the Captain America around him.

 

“Sarge! Is Sarge up and spitting yet?” Dum Dum roars over the cheers. “Get him here!”

 

Steve is curious about this man who he has heard so much about on their long trek back. The tale of the rescue had evolved every time it was retold to Steve, but the gist of it seemed to be that Sergeant Barnes had been taken away from the cells to somewhere, already sick and showing the signs of pneumonia, but a week later he had suddenly showed up at the cells and let people out. Steve wasn’t sure how -- on some retellings Sergeant was told to have ripped the bars with his bare hands, on some retellings he had forced a Nazi officer to unlock the cells.

 

Anyway, the consensus was that Sergeant was a hero, who even before the rescue had kept the morale up and covered for the others, even in his own expense. The loyalty and respect the others had for him was clear as day, and on third day of the trek back Morita let Steve know how Sarge had named Dugan ‘Dum Dum’ for covering in turn for Sergeant. “He’s a selfless and good man, our Sarge. But try to return the favor for him, and he’ll yell your ears off and name you the biggest moron walking on Earth.”

 

Truthfully, Steve is intimidated and quite a bit nervous to meet this hero, as he watches a bunch of men rush to the medical tent to get Sergeant Barnes out for celebrations and to meet the freshly rescued men.

 

Steve didn’t expect a ghost of a broken man who gets out of the tent. The man is pale, and there are deep shadows under his eyes. His hair stands up everywhere, his uniform is disheveled. He smiles to his men, but Steve can see how forced it is.

 

Steve had thought he felt intimidated before, but that was nothing to how he feels now. This man has clearly gone through hell, has _lived_ through it, and still he managed to get not only himself but so many of his men out of there. There might be comics and newsreels of Captain America, but Steve feels small and pretentious when faced with this brave, non-serumed soldier, who’s carrying the signs of war in his every movement.

 

Steve takes a deep breath, walks up to him and offers his hand. “Sergeant. It’s an honour to meet you. Your men have told me great things about you.”

  


\---

  


**_Bucky_ **

 

Bucky has had to remind himself daily that he is out of There. He still doesn’t quite believe that any of this is real. He doesn’t feel like himself. There’s a perpetual coldness in his veins, his head is a mess, and he spends his nights either sleepless or in nightmares; either surrounded by all the men he left behind to die in Azzano, or by the faces of doctors who keep poking and prodding at him.

 

Then. There’s suddenly Steve.

 

Except it’s not Steve. It’s a stranger with Steve’s face who is smiling politely to Bucky and offering his hand for a handshake. All his men are around them, even many of those who Bucky left to die, cheering for them both, cheering for them for getting everyone they could out of Azzano alive.

 

Bucky’s not sure if this is another nightmare. “Who are you?” he asks, his throat dry, his hand still gripping tightly the man’s -- Steve’s? Not-Steve’s? -- hand.

 

The man is starting to look as confused as Bucky feels.

 

Bucky should perhaps let go of his hand already. He can’t. This man has Steve’s eyes. But his hand is huge and warm in Bucky’s (Steve had poor circulation; cold hands and cold feet that Bucky loved to warm up for him). Bucky’s head is spiraling.

 

“Captain Rogers,” the man who shares Steve’s face and apparently also his last name says with a polite and confused smile, and then continues with amusement: “May I have my hand back?”

 

Bucky licks his lips and okay, yeah, this is a dream. He ignores the roar of the laughter around them, and Morita’s growingly concerned expression. “Steve? Steve Rogers?”

 

Captain Rogers frowns. “Uh, yes? You’ve heard of me?”

 

Morita is suddenly no longer beside Captain Steve Rogers, but almost in between them, looking with gentle eyes at Bucky: “Hey Sarge, let go of the poor man. Let’s get you back to medical, ‘kay?”

 

“Okay,” Bucky mutters, lets go of Captain Steve Rogers’ hand, and lets Morita and Gabe maneuver him back inside the tent.

 

Later, Bucky lies on his cot and has another sleepless night. He keeps replaying the handshake and the brief, few words exchanged between him and Captain Steve Rogers. There was no recognition on man’s face when he saw Bucky. There was no visit from Captain Steve Rogers later, no explanations, no stolen kisses.

 

It wasn’t his Steve. Bucky’s head is playing tricks on him again. He doesn’t know which parts are tricks and which are true.

 

He closes his eyes and starts to whisper to himself the comforting mantra that has got himself through his nights. “Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. Three, two, five, five…”

 

Maybe it was Steve, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Bucky is still There, maybe he isn’t. He recites over and over his name, his rank, his serial number, with his eyes closed, and it’s the next best thing to sleeping.

  


\---

  


Bucky eats his lunch silently while Morita recaps their rescue mission. It would sound like a wild tale, but Bucky remembers how he himself teared the lab door apart and punched through a man’s face before he got the first bunch of men rescued from Azzano.

 

So. Hearing about someone else throwing a jeep around doesn’t make him call Morita a liar. Even if it is unsettling.

 

“He told us some of his story on our way back,” Morita says and turns serious. “Not to everyone, just me and Dugan. The army made him what he is. He says he doesn’t remember anything from before.”

 

Bucky lowers his spoon and stares into nothingness. _‘He doesn’t remember anything from before.’ ‘The army made him what he is.’_ His head is buzzing.

 

“Sarge,” Morita says slowly. “You had that friend, Steve, didn’t you? The one you told all those stories about?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You called Captain ‘Steve’.”

 

Bucky remembers Captain, who stood straight and proud in the middle of everyone, celebrated as a hero. He was a man who had walked into hell and back, and it had only sharpened his steely core. He was the hero who had gone back to get out the men that Bucky had left behind.

 

Captain was a man who didn’t have a need for someone like Bucky, whose head was a mess and who was broken perhaps beyond repair and who was probably going to be shipped back to States with a honourable discharge as soon as someone got around to it.

 

Bucky smiles to Morita. Tries to be convincing. “Yeah. Made myself look like a moron, didn’t I? Thanks for getting me out of there.”

 

Morita gives him a Look. “Not what I meant.”

 

Bucky shrugs, tries to be casual about it. “Didn’t have my head straight. Got confused for a moment.”

 

“Mhm.” Morita looks at him suspiciously. “If you say so, Sarge.”

  


\---

  


Bucky sees Captain around the camp and during the journey to England.

 

_‘He doesn’t remember anything from before.’_ It doesn’t seem to be holding Captain back.

 

Bucky watches him. Watches how he throws himself into the duty, spends hours hunched over maps while making plans with the other Officers. Bucky is invisible in the middle of it all. Just one broken soldier who is invited to the meetings out of courtesy to his rank.

 

Men flock around Captain. He’s a living legend already.

 

Maybe it’s sick masochism that makes Bucky go to all the meetings. He takes paths in and out that make him walk close by Captain. He looks at his face and searches for the recognition. Waits for the bewildered _‘Bucky?’_

 

Captain doesn’t call him Bucky. Captain gives him polite nods to acknowledge him, calls him Sergeant Barnes, and never stops in his tracks when he sees him.

 

Captain is a busy man, and there’s no need for Bucky in his life.

 

Bucky is unraveling at his seams, and only the thought that this is all a joke keeps him going. His Steve is back in Brooklyn.

 

In darkest hours, when he can’t lie to himself, he spirals down into dark thoughts; Steve looks happy and alive in a way he so rarely used to. Steve is finally rid of Bucky. Bucky isn’t there to hold him back. Steve doesn’t remember him, and it’s the best thing that could have happened for Steve, because Bucky is only an empty shell and not worth remembering.

  


\---

  


**_Steve_ **

 

He’s in London, sitting with the men who have just agreed to become his troop; Morita, Monty, Gabe, Dum Dum, Dernier.

 

He’s no longer a showgirl. He did it -- he found a way to become the soldier the tiny Steve Rogers wanted to be when he stepped inside that machine and turned himself into a supersoldier.

 

Drinks flow and the music is loud and merry, when Morita leans forward and looks at Steve with serious face. “Cap, we should take Sarge with us.”

 

The smiles fade around the table. Monty clears his throat. “Maybe it’ll be better for Sarge to get home.”

 

Morita gives Monty a dark look. “He’s not going to get any better if he’s shipped back. He’s just going to sit around drinking, mope, and worry about everyone. Might as well join us and mope while saving our asses.”

 

Steve looks at where Sergeant Barnes is sitting alone, hunched over his drink. “I can always ask. But he has more than earned his right to go back home.”

 

He hasn’t talked with Sergeant Barnes since that one day they shook their hands. He knows that the man has got better since then, but still, every time Steve has seen Barnes around he has been quiet and withdrawn; so unlike how he is in the fond stories the others have told about him to Steve.

 

Steve stands up and walks over to Barnes. “Sergeant,” he says as a greeting, feeling awkward and self-conscious, but doing his best to hide it.

 

Barnes looks at him sideways and gives him a crooked smile. “Captain,” he mutters. “I see that you have stolen my men for yourself.”

 

Suddenly Steve feels ten times more awkward. “Uh-”

 

Barnes snorts and shakes his head. “Just kidding, Cap.” He looks down at his drink. “They are good men. Idiots, all of them, but good men.”

 

Steve can’t help but smile. He knows that his ‘Howlies’ are some of the sharpest men in the army, each one of them excellent, intelligent and capable soldier with several languages and other skills under their belt. He knows exactly what Barnes -- who named Dugan ‘Dum Dum’ for covering for Barnes and taking his punishment in Azzano -- means by his words.

 

“It was suggested to me that the team could use one more idiot, and I found myself agreeing,” Steve says lightly and leans against the bar. The warm light in the bar illuminates Barnes’ face in a way that has Steve captured helplessly. He drags his eyes away from memorizing the lines and shapes of Barnes’ face. _Keep yourself together, Rogers, and stop ogling before he notices and punches you._ “What do you say, Sergeant? Would you follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

 

Barnes’s crooked smile fades away. He looks at Steve, his eyes flickering and searching for something in Steve’s face.

 

Pinned by those pale blue eyes, Steve feels himself flush. “It wasn’t an order,” he rushes to say. “You can say no, of course. But you’d be valuable to our team.”

 

Barnes licks his lips and seems to think carefully over his words. “I’ve heard the talk about you. They say you’re some military experiment.”

 

Steve’s eyes flicker towards the table where his men are sitting. There are only a few people who know his story. He’s not surprised that one of them has shared it with Barnes, but he hopes that they have not told it to anyone else. He looks back to Bucky and nods. “That’s correct. I volunteered for it.”

 

“Of course you did,” Barnes mutters.

 

“Hmm?”

 

Barnes shakes his head and takes a big gulp of his beer. He stares into nothingness for a moment, and then asks: “Did it hurt?”

 

Nobody has asked Steve that. Steve can only stare at Barnes for a moment, surprised by the question. “Little.”

 

“And you just believed them when they told you that you had volunteered?”

 

Steve frowns. Their conversation is going strangely. He hesitates for a moment, but… Something makes him want to explain himself for Barnes.

 

He pulls carefully the photo of tiny Steve Rogers out of his pocket and puts it onto the table. “They gave me this. It’s me, before the serum.”

 

Barnes goes strangely still and stares at the photo.

 

Steve rubs his neck. “I don’t remember any of it, any of… _him,”_ he says and gestures to the photo. “But I was told about Steve Rogers after I got out of the machine. I met couple of people who knew him, if only a little, and they told me about him. He volunteered because he wanted to do his part.” Steve shakes his head. “I got a list of his ailments and… _I’m_ a supersoldier. That’s all I know, all I remember ever being. I don’t remember being that little guy, I can’t imagine what his life must have been like, but somehow he kept going and I’m trying to live up to that courage. He went into that machine, ready to risk his life for his country. In a sense, he _did_ sacrifice himself. He’s gone. The least I can do is to not throw that sacrifice away.”

 

For a moment Steve thinks that perhaps he has said too much. He hasn’t talked to anyone, even to Peggy, about the dissonance he feels whenever he thinks about ‘his’ life before the serum. How he’s trying to live rootlessly, without memories, with only the army and the orders as his structure, and his only real, personal focus point being the few bits he knows about the tiny Steve Rogers. He’s not that same man, he can’t be, he doesn’t know anything real about him -- but he wants to be a good man. He wants to live up to Steve Rogers’ sacrifice.

 

Sergeant Barnes lowers his head suddenly and covers his eyes with his hand, and his breathing becomes shaky and uneven.

 

Steve blinks, suddenly wrongfooted. “Uh-”

 

“I’m not going to follow _Captain America_ to anywhere,” Barnes says sharply, in a rough, thick voice. He takes his hand away from his eyes that are uncomfortably bright, like he’s close to tears. He runs his hand through his hair, making it even more disheveled than before. He’s not looking at Steve; his eyes are fixed again at the photo of little Steve Rogers. “But you know what? Okay. I’ll help you make it up for that little guy.”

  


\---

  


Morita was right when he suggested that they’d take Sergeant Barnes with them.

 

They’ve been a team for few months, and already Steve sincerely believes that they would have died at least a dozen times if not for the Sergeant.

 

Barnes is not only a versatile, skilled soldier (excellent no matter whether he’s in combat with an assault rifle, a sniping rifle, knives, or hand-to-hand) and great second-in-command with a good head for details, but he’s also not afraid of Steve.

 

Maybe _afraid_ is a wrong word. The others aren’t _afraid_ of Steve either, but… they take Steve at face value in a way that Barnes doesn’t. They are starting to take their cues from Barnes, slowly, but none of them are still as ready as Barnes to shoot down Steve’s plans when they suck or to stand up against him.

 

Sometimes Barnes takes his _‘not afraid of standing up to Steve’_ act so far that Steve is frankly worried that Barnes actually, secretly hates him. There are times when he glares at Steve a little too darkly or avoids Steve as much as he can for days, not meeting his eyes and only talking to him with a flat, emotionless tone when necessary.

 

Those times are however fewer than the times that Barnes disrespectfully steps in and places another ration in Steve’s hands and tells Steve to eat it, with dark mutterings of _‘for fuck’s sake, Cap, eat it or I’m gonna feed it to you, you’re a supersoldier and you fucking need to eat, stop being stupid.’_

 

The others love it. Of course they do.

  


\---

  


There’s not much that Steve has left of the little guy. He doesn’t know if it’s nostalgia or a desperation that makes him so hung up for the little things he has.

 

He pilfers pens and papers out of bases, both hostile and friendly, whenever he can. During the long downtimes and all the waiting, he sits down and draws.

 

Sometimes he challenges himself and comes up with things he wants to draw. He enjoys figuring out the lines and shadows, drawing to the skill he still carries with him, even if he has no memories of anything he used to draw.

 

Sometimes he lets himself doodle idly while deep in thought.

 

He suspects that tiny Steve Rogers used to draw people more often than anything else. That’s where his doodles usually carry him to; to draw, out of muscle memory, the plump lips with a hint of a secret smile and mischievous eyes dark with arousal.

 

He’s sitting around the campfire one evening, doodling away, when he realizes that the familiar shapes he’s yet again drawing are of a man, and that he needs to be more careful with his idle pastime so he won’t give too much away.

 

He has already realized he’s queer, and even though his men are remarkably independent thinking, Steve would not like to risk exposing himself.

 

\---

  


They’ve been a team for eight months when Steve gets shot by five bullets. His shield can’t cover him from more than one side at the time, so he had bodyblocked the shots from the other side to cover for Gabe, as they ran away from the Hydra base rigged with explosives by Dugan. Steve’s body can take the bullets better than Gabe’s.

 

When they are finally all in safe distance away from the enemy base, Sergeant Barnes loses his mind.

 

“There were so fucking many other ways you could have got the two of you out of there,” Barnes rants while Morita is reopening the shot wounds and picking the bullets out. “You could have ripped a door and used it as a second shield! Why the fuck didn’t you do that?!”

 

“Didn’t cross my mind,” Steve says mildly and then bites his teeth together as Morita pulls the third bullet out. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next time.”

 

Barnes paces back and forth, his hands stumbling as he lights his cigarette. “You fucking moron, you aren’t invincible. Any of those bullets could have hit you in the head. What the fuck would you have done then?”

 

“Well, none of them did,” Steve replies sharply. Barnes ranting at him is nothing unusual, but he is close to crossing a line. Steve is, after all, still his commanding officer, no matter how informal their troop tends to be. “We got out of there alive. That’s the important bit.”

 

Barnes stops his pacing and glares darkly at Steve, like he’s ready to shoot him in the head himself. “You’re a fucking moron. You’re gonna get yourself killed one of these days--”

 

_“Sergeant,”_ Steve interrupts him sharply. “Enough.”

 

Barnes shuts his mouth and looks like he’s biting his jaws together so hard that Steve is surprised he’s not breaking his teeth. “Yes, _sir,”_ he finally hisses through his teeth.

 

Steve nods sharply, his eyes steadily on Barnes. “Go help set up the watch and the camp. You’re not needed here.”

 

Barnes turns sharply and walks away without another word.

 

Steve winces as Morita pulls out the fourth bullet. Morita gives him an inscrutable look and then mutters, “Don’t be too hard on him. Sarge’s a softie. He worries.”

 

“Still can’t let him run his mouth like that,” Steve argues back, his temperament thin from the exhausting mission.

 

Morita looks unhappy, but doesn’t say more.

  


\---

  


By the time all of the bullets are out of him and the camp is set for the night, Steve regrets how sharply he shut Barnes down. Morita was right; Steve knows that Barnes crossed the line only because he cared. Steve is lucky to have men at his back who care enough to yell at him for recklessly risking his life.

 

Barnes and Dum Dum are getting ready for the first watch, when Steve speaks up: “Dugan, go to sleep. I’ll take the first watch with Sergeant.”

 

Barnes doesn’t even look at him, just continues to strap his knives.

 

Dum Dum looks between them and nods. “‘Kay, Cap.” There’s a faint smirk playing on his face, and he clearly has some witty things he’s dying to say, but apparently Sergeant with a bunch of knives and a bad mood is enough to make him keep them to himself.

 

Barnes waits for Steve to get ready, but makes an amazing show of looking like he just happens to stand there, like he’s bored and just watching the forest. When Steve is ready, Barnes sets out without a word and Steve has to follow him.

 

They find a spot with nice cover and good sightlines. Barnes leans against the tree and lights up a cigarette.

 

Steve steps closer to him and ignores the way Barnes tenses. “I’m sorry for the earlier.”

 

Barnes takes a few smokes, before he replies with a flat tone: “You did nothing wrong. I was out of the line, sir.”

 

Barnes never calls him ‘sir’ unless he’s mad at Steve, about one thing or the another. Then he’s suddenly all distant and proper in a way that Steve secretly hates.

 

“Yes, you were,” Steve agrees. “But you had a point. I need to be more careful.”

 

Barnes snorts and mutters: “Well, that’ll be a day when pigs start flying.”

 

Steve rolls his eyes, even though Barnes can’t see it in the dark, but he’s relieved that Barnes is dropping his formal act. “I can be plenty careful,” Steve says, mock-offended. “‘Careful’ is practically my middle name.”

 

There’s a long pause when Barnes doesn’t reply; only takes a couple more smokes out of his cigarette. Then he says quietly, with far too much raw emotion: “I wish it was. I really do.”

 

Steve’s vision is good in darkness, so he can see Barnes’ eyes on him, serious and solemn. Steve opens his mouth, then closes it, fumbling for how to respond.

 

“You’re really going to get yourself killed one day, Steve,” Barnes continues quietly. “You don’t remember how to be a mortal. You are like a little kid who has never yet broken a bone or felt true fear of death. All you know is that fucking tank of a body that heals everything too quickly for any lessons to stick in your goddamn thick head.”

 

Steve swallows and can’t look away from Barnes. Barnes has a knack for shaking him up, throwing their conversations into strange directions, saying things that nobody else ever says to Steve -- it has been so ever since that first handshake, ever since that first real conversation in London.

 

Steve feels like he’s always one step behind him. Weren’t they just fighting? Wasn’t Barnes just yelling at him earlier in the evening? Now he’s looking at Steve like he’s already mourning his upcoming, inevitable death, and calling him _Steve,_ which is something he never does.

 

Barnes swallows and, with his eyes still locked with Steve’s, blurts: “I _hate_ it.”

 

Steve is not thinking about what he’s doing when he closes the distance between them and gently pushes a runaway, sweat-sticky hair away from Barnes’ face; it’s automatic, like the most natural thing in the world, a response to that unhappy expression on Barnes’ face, an attempt to comfort and soothe away the pain. He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing before his fingers are already running through Barnes’ soft, thick hair and he’s leaning forward to lean his forehead against Barnes’ forehead.

 

Steve freezes.

 

Barnes has gone still. He is staring at Steve with his eyes wide and scared. He looks vulnerable in a way that Steve hasn’t seen him before.

 

Before Steve can stop the panicked internal screaming of _‘What the fuck am I doing’_ looping through his head and gather himself, Barnes exhales sharply and drops his cigarette on the ground. He raises his hands to cup the back of Steve’s head to pull him closer.

 

Then he kisses Steve. And Steve’s brain short circuits.

 

Barnes kisses him hungrily, desperately. His fingers tug Steve’s hair painfully; his grip tight and unyielding. There’s nothing gentle about the way his lips move against Steve’s lips with a bruising need.

 

Steve can’t help but respond. He has officially stopped thinking. He’s never kissed anyone -- can’t remember it, at least -- but this, this comes from his backbone. His body knows what it wants and what to do. Every nerve in his body is singing _yes yes yes touch him touch him yes._

 

Steve pushes against Barnes, pushes him against the tree with his body. The whimper Barnes makes goes straight into his groin. He runs his fingers through Barnes’ hair, marvels at the feel of it, before he _tugs_ and tilts Barnes’ head back and takes control of the kiss.

 

Barnes lets him, readily and without resistance; he moans brokenly into the kiss, and opens his mouth to let Steve in.

  


\---

  


_‘Woah’_ is the first thought Steve has after coming down from his orgasm. The second is _‘oh shit’_ and the third is _‘what the hell now?’_

 

Barnes is breathing heavily, his face buried between Steve’s neck and the shoulder, and his hands are gripping the front of Steve’s uniform tightly, like he’s planning to never let go again.

 

Both of their pants are still down, tangled around their ankles, and Steve is starting to become uncomfortably aware of the cold breeze against his naked skin.

 

Steve’s mind is reeling. He has known pretty much from the start that he has some queer in him; it didn’t take long to figure out. And of course he has been aware that Barnes is, well, attractive. Steve’s mind has more than once got derailed by the flushed face and angry, sparkling eyes while getting ranted at.

 

But he’s kept a lid on those thoughts. He has focused on missions, on their purpose here behind the enemy lines.

 

“So, uh,” he starts, wondering how they’re going to address what the fuck just happened, and then he realizes that Barnes is _crying_ against his shoulder. It’s not outright sobbing or weeping, but the way he is shaking with tiny twitches and how his breathing hitches is unmistakable.

 

Steve feels out of his depth; yet again thrown off guard by Barnes, who always seems to know just how to surprise and confuse Steve. Steve gingerly wraps his arms around Barnes to hold him. Barnes leans against Steve with all his weight, holds onto him like a drowning man.

 

“Barnes?” Steve says carefully, and then, because for fuck’s sake, he just had man’s cock in his hand. If they are not in first name basis by now then they’ll never be: “James?”

 

James’ grip on his uniform tightens, and he’s going to soon rip it, but Steve doesn’t much care. He’s too busy trying to piece together what the fuck is wrong and what he should do.

 

“Was it that bad?” Steve asks, aiming for light, teasing tone and utterly failing. “Sorry, been too busy to get a lot of experience.”

 

“Don’t,” James whispers against his shoulder, and he sounds so _pained_ that it breaks Steve’s heart. “Just. Stop talking. _Please.”_

 

Steve is confused, but he burrows his nose in James’ hair, and nods silently.

 

They stand like that for a long moment, before James has stopped shaking and his breathing has evened out.

 

\---

 

Then, out of blue, James abruptly shoves Steve away, with a surprising strength, and Steve stumbles a step backwards.

 

“Hey--!”

 

“We’re on _watch,”_ James says sharply. He’s full on disapproving and angry Sergeant Barnes again, even when he looks like such a mess. He starts to pull his trousers up. “Get your pants up, Cap.”

 

James -- or is it Barnes? Sergeant? No, it’s _James,_ Steve decides vehemently -- acts like whatever happened was yet again something to get mad about, and Steve feels himself bristle. He pulls his pants up (James _is_ right, they’re on watch, and Steve is feeling angry at himself, at both of them -- they just endangered their whole team), but he can’t help to snap back: “Wasn’t exactly _my_ idea to start it.”

 

“Guess the stupid is caching,” James shots back, and then grimaces. He continues with flatter, more contained voice: “Sorry, _sir._ Won’t happen again. I’ll go clean up first.”

 

Steve is left there on watch, confused of James's mood swing and angry about... everything about the whole situation.

 

When James gets back, neither of them speak up, and Steve leaves to get cleaned up in turn.

 

The rest of their watch is spent in tense silence. They stand apart by a good distance and ignore each other.

 

_Well, that’s one way to have a first kiss._ Steve knows it can’t have been his actual first kiss. It had felt like drawing; like his body and some deep part of his brain still remembered how to do it.

 

He wonders who the little Steve Rogers had kissed, back in Brooklyn. Was there some guy or gal who wondered where Steve had disappeared? Was there someone left behind who mourned after him?

  


\---

  


When Sergeant James Barnes falls off the train, they all mourn him. He was a good man, one of the best.

 

James remained a cryptic mystery to Steve, a man who kept throwing Steve off guard ‘til his last day. Steve respected him, admired him, trusted him, had his back in the fights, had to keep himself from staring at his face in the light of the campfire, but he never learnt to understand James’s dark moods or what went through his head.

 

They never talked about the kiss between them. Steve tried to bring it up couple of times, but James shut him down harshly and with biting words. The kiss never happened again.

 

James kept calling him ‘Captain’ or ‘Rogers’, and kept a firm wall between them, but the last thing he did in his life was to grab without hesitation Steve’s shield and stand between him and the enemy.

 

James was an impossible man to get close to, and Steve never got to see the man from Howlies’ stories from before Azzano -- that man full of wild stories and rowdy jokes and laughter -- but Steve sits with the others and mourns the man who had declared that he would follow Steve not because of glory or because Captain America asked, but because the story of little Steve Rogers somehow touched him back in that pub in London.

  


\---

  


**_2012_ **

 

The first time Steve reads about Bucky Barnes he has to stop, get up, and leave for a run.

 

It’s right there, on his wikipedia page. Everyone knows about him. Everyone thinks _Steve_ knew about him all along.

 

_“Best friends since childhood, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service--”_

 

It was a fact uncovered after the war, after Captain America’s identity as Steve Rogers was revealed, during the years when the Captain America hype was at its highest. There are interviews from Becca Barnes and the rest of the Barnes family, from people in their neighborhood, from their old teachers and classmates.

 

They all talk about how beautiful story of friendship and brotherhood it was; how Steve found a way to join the battlefield, and how together they formed the Howling Commandos and became the legends. How tragic it was that they both sacrificed themselves for the world.

 

There are even photos from their childhood. Family photos, where Steve is in the middle of Barnes’ family, or Bucky is there, next to Steve and Steve’s mother.

 

Steve watches Peggy’s interviews, enraged at first, but then, after seeing her skirt tight lipped away from the subject, he realizes that she didn’t know at the time. She would have told him. She always seemed more sad and concerned about Steve’s lost years than Steve was.

 

None of the remaining Howling Commandos reveal any of the tragedy either. Steve sees how Dum Dum’s face pinches tight when he’s asked what it was like to work in a team lead by two men so close they were practically brothers, and that’s when Steve knows that none of them knew either. “There was no favoritism in the group,” Dum Dum says on video. “We all had one another’s backs, we were all ready to die for each other. Cap and Sarge? They made a good team. We were all lucky to have them.”

 

Steve breaks four punching bags while trying to come up with the explanation for why James -- _Bucky --_ didn’t say anything. Why hadn’t he told Steve?

 

He breaks the next five punching bags with a resigned understanding growing uncomfortably inside him. Steve hadn’t been James’s Steve. James had truly followed the Howlies only for the little guy from Brooklyn, to honor his memory and sacrifice. It had nothing to do with _Steve._

 

Steve breaks the next three punching bags thinking about their kiss and their rushed jerking off in the woods, thinking about the nameless shapes and lines and smiles and winks he so often ends up doodling in his sketchbooks, thinking for the first time that maybe, just maybe, becoming a supersoldier hadn’t been a gift.

  
Steve loses count of the punching bags he breaks while, for the first time, he's being angry, so _angry,_ for the little Steve Rogers for stepping inside that machine and destroying something precious, something now lost forever, something that Steve won’t be able to make right again. For the first time ever, as he keeps punching until the skin on his knuckles is raw and bloody, he doesn't think of his past self as a brave hero who he needs to live up to, but as the selfish villain of the story, the jerk who threw everything,  _everyone,_ away in his single-minded pursuit to join the war.

 

 

 

 


End file.
